Laurence Tribe and Alan Dershowitz, no paleoconservatives they, have both addressed the issue and come to the same conclusion, viz., that 14A binds 2A to the States, and that the 2nd does indeed confer an individual right by its own terms, but absolutely indestructibly when considered further in the light of the 14th.
To arrive at this finding, the Court will have to overturn Presser vs. Illinois, the foundation of modern gun-control laws, and with it the despised 1939 Miller decision.
The Administration brief in the D.C. case, as in its pleading in Emerson previously, attempts to preserve all federal firearms laws in the teeth of their unconstitutionality. The Administration asks SCOTUS on the one hand to find an individual right, and on the other to proceed as if they were not dealing with a right at all.
This is all so damn confusing. However, with my crystal ball let me predict a very nasty '08:
The social fabric is coming apart at the seams. I've heard with my ears (screaming and 'f'-bombs being dropped in places one would least expect) and seen with my eyes (repo-ed cars on flatbed tow trucks- one which evoked a gang reaction in an area one would not expect) as well as being solicited recently to give money to tattooed individuals needing gas money. And there have been other signs as well.
This relates to the topic at hand by noting how ironic it is to be looking at an up-coming summer (maybe sooner) that could be explosive to the point where self-defense may depend on the 'people's' access to arms- while the courts twiddle their thumbs.
Recessions in the past have come and gone. This time, the combustible mix of malcontents, uneducated, thugs, gangsters, etc. may have serious ramifications. We'll know in two or three months, and if not by then, when the Clintons pull the rug out from under Obama, it'll be on.
Tribe is, unfortunately, rapidly backpedalling now - apparently not with any cogent explanation repudiating his prior position, but simply regurgiating the naieve collective view (veiled with an obligatory “oh, but it’s INDIVIDUAL”). Hints are his favorite law student - a certain B.H. Obama - may be seeking to return certain favors, involving a re-positioning on Heller.